Increasing the Effectiveness of Media Buys:

Cost Per Hour

As agency people we are constantly trying to make sense of all the data. We have a responsibility to counsel our clients on the best ways to fully optimize their media dollars and to be honest about what is working and what is not.

The Financial Times is trying a new method of measuring success for its advertisers. Under this new plan, FT will experiment with CPH advertising (cost per hour), meaning its advertisers will only pay for advertisements that are seen by a user for more than 5 seconds of “active use” time.

The rationale behind this new approach: FT doesn’t have a huge amount of traffic compared to other online platforms, but its readers spendmore than three times as long on the site as the average reader does at other media outlets—a huge selling point for brands.

The takeaway? It’s not about going after the latest trend but more about evaluating what the best approach is based on the realities of each client.

It will likely take a while before agencies, clients and media partners are open to exploring other ways of measuring results, but I’m glad we are talking about it.